More advice on reform of the Lords

Now that the possible reform of the House of Lords is on the cards (Peers have no right to block change if MPs vote to reform House of Lords, says Straw, March 6), perhaps I may suggest that some of the attendant difficulties being discussed could be avoided by the simple expedient of retaining the House of Lords as a purely advisory body - able to produce reports, hold investigations etc. The revising of acts and other legislative business could be assigned to special select committees of the Commons, thereby giving valuable experience to MPs, who would reflect the relative strengths of the parties in the Commons. At the same time, the opportunity would be afforded to separate the juduciary from the legislative and executive arms of government.

This idea was floated many years ago by John Robertson MP, but was lost in the maelstrom of circumstance.Francis WestobyHitchin, Herts

Dr David Kiernan (Letters, March 3) proposes the abolition of our upper house on the basis that "the majority of representative democracies are unicameral and none the worse for it". Technically, this statement is incorrect: thus of the 27 member states of the European Union, 14 have bicameral and 13 have unicameral legislatures.

However, even this statistic does not tell the whole story. Larger countries are more prone to bicameralism than smaller nations, and every one of the EU member states having more than 20 million inhabitants (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain) has a bicameral system.Walter CairnsManchester